There has been growing interest in vanadium compounds of various types for use as catalysts in a variety of chemical procedures. There also has been particular interest in vanadium oxides for use in electronic devices for heat sensing.
There has also been growing interest in layered structures, typically for use as hosts to support guest cations intercalated between the layers. In particular, layered inorganic oxides constitute a diverse class of materials most of which share the common structural feature of a cationic guest which lies between the anionic oxide layers. The largest number of examples known are layered materials composed largely of main group cations like clays, but solids with transition or post-transition elements like the layered double hydroxides and certain alkali metal titanates are also known. Layered oxides hosting both transition and main group cations, such as the Zr, V and Mo phosphates and phosphonates, have also been studied. While many of these solids are noted for their unique characteristic of allowing a wide variety of organic or inorganic chemistries to be performed in the interlamellar region, the closed shell diamagnetic layers serve mainly as an inert nanoscale scaffolding. In contrast to these diamagnetic layers, several lamellar vanadium oxide solids have been prepared by the intercalation of both alkali metal cations and conductive organic polymers between layers of V.sub.2 O.sub.5. The present invention represents novel forms of such layered structures involving vanadium oxides.